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McIlroy and Woods Fall in Match Play

Rory McIlroy, the world No. 1, hitting from the rough on the second hole against Shane Lowry.Credit
Ralph D. Freso/Reuters

MARANA, Ariz. — It was hard enough for Charles Howell III to keep calm and carry on when he knew he had a Wednesday date against Tiger Woods in the first round of the W.G.C.-Accenture Match Play Championship. Then the schedule was buried underneath four inches of snow, and Howell had another day and a half to ponder his match against Woods, whom he had never beaten in match-play competition or in their dozens of practice matches during the years they were neighbors in Orlando, Fla.

By Howell’s estimate, his losing streak to Woods was at least 75. By nightfall Thursday, the streak was over. As the curtain of darkness descended on top of them, Howell put away Woods, a three-time champion, 2-and-1, at Dove Mountain.

Woods, the second-ranked player in the world, bowed out despite not making a bogey and missing only one fairway. He simply could not keep pace with Howell, who made three putts of longer than 20 feet.

Rory McIlroy, the world No. 1 from Northern Ireland, also was upset by a good friend with whom he has enjoyed the upper hand. On Tuesday night, Shane Lowry of Ireland dined with a group that included McIlroy. Two nights later he served McIlroy a 1-up defeat. McIlroy, who switched equipment this year, missed four fairways and seven greens in his first competitive event since missing the cut in his season opener.

“I think it’s more a timing thing than anything else,” McIlroy said, adding, “Obviously disappointed I didn’t get to play a little more golf this week.”

McIlroy and Lowry did not hit a shot Wednesday and they did not start until midafternoon Thursday, after the revised schedule was pushed back four and a half hours. The added delay was fine with McIlroy, who spent the morning following the quarterfinal match in Dubai of his girlfriend, the tennis player Caroline Wozniacki, who defeated Marion Bartoli in three sets.

McIlroy sent a congratulatory message to Wozniacki via Twitter: “Never stops fighting out there. True champion! I better get going to warm up for my match now.”

When his turn came, McIlroy never stopped fighting, but with a 4-foot par at the 18th hole, Lowry delivered the knockout punch.

Howell sounded surprised that he was the last man standing in his match against Woods, a 75-time tour champion. “All the delays and everything, I felt like I’ve played him about five or six times before we’d even teed off today,” Howell said. “I knew I had to play extremely well to have a chance, and I still kept waiting for that Tiger moment.”

The scene was staged beautifully for Woods at No. 15, but his approach, while pin high, landed in the primary rough, and he settled for a par. On No. 16, he missed a 12-foot birdie putt, a distance that Howell described as usually in Woods’s “wheelhouse.”

“As far as beating Tiger Woods goes, it shows you that match play is crazy,” Howell said.

Until the upsets by Lowry and Howell, center stage belonged to Russell Henley, who posted a 1-up victory over Charl Schwartzel, who had finished no lower than fifth in his previous six competitive starts. For shock value, it rivaled eighth-ranked Lee Westwood’s loss on the 19th hole to Rafael Cabrera Bello, the 60th-ranked player in the world.

“I’ve heard a lot of comments from people saying they expected him to win,” said Henley, a PGA Tour rookie who began the day all-square with Schwartzel through 11 holes. He added, “I just tried to hang in, just give it everything I had.”

The American Matt Kuchar waited 26 hours to make three strokes — a 14-foot lag putt on the 15th, a tee shot to 36 feet and a lag putt to 3 feet — in his 3-and-2 victory against Hiroyuki Fujita. Not wishing to waste his full warm-up, Kuchar played the 17th and 18th holes just for the feel of it.

“I thought, maybe I’ll see if my driver works,” Kuchar said, adding, “I had put in a warm-up and I felt like, gosh, I might as well play a few extra holes.”

Kuchar spoke of how “things can completely change overnight.” He could have been referring to the weather, which turned from snowy to sunny and cold. But he was talking about match momentum. He was cognizant of the need to stay aggressive. So was his American counterpart Bo Van Pelt.

Van Pelt, who began the day 5-up through 12, needed only two strokes to finish off the Australian John Senden, 6 and 5. Van Pelt hit his third shot on the par-5 13th out of the rough to short of the green and chipped to 3 feet.

“You know, my game didn’t feel that great coming into the week,” he said, “but it’s kind of slowly progressed, so hopefully I’ll kind of stay in the rhythm that I’m in.”

Van Pelt grew up in Indiana. On a day when casual ice came into play, few players were better conditioned to survive and advance.

A version of this article appears in print on February 22, 2013, on page B15 of the New York edition with the headline: McIlroy and Woods Fall in Match Play. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe